Our Child Protection project is in partnership with UNHCR sees us working to protect vulnerable children from violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination, while providing them with access to necessary support services, and enhancing their social and emotional wellbeing.

Activities include games and sports, art, music and singing, as well as non-formal educational classes in English language.

Supported by the German Federal Foreign Office in Erbil, Earth Sisters aims to upskill and increase the capacity of women and girls in Duhok on climate change and its links to gender-based violence. 

The project is part of our core Climate Change pillar, which we launched earlier this year, and has seen 50 Earth Sisters trained in order to highlight gender injustices, women’s rights, and crucially, the vital role women and girls can play in climate change response.

Our School Garden at Domiz 2 camp is a unique environmental stewardship scheme, designed to equip 80 children and young people with the skills they need to play a role in changing behaviours and attitudes towards climate change in their communities.

With a varied and diverse botanical zone, the garden has more than 1,200 plants, ranging from ornamental trees to flowers, cacti and fruit trees, and the youths are learning how to grow and nurture plants and vegetables themselves, while receiving educational classes about our precious environment.

As the very first project to sit under our Climate Change pillar, we launched ‘She Leads in Food Security’ in early 2023 to enhance the food security and economic status of IDPs, refugees and returnees in Sinjar district.

The project focuses on climate-smart agriculture and income-generating initiatives, as well as large-scale awareness around issues relating to nutrition, food wastage, food preservation and environmental issues.

After launching on International Women’s Day in 2023, Jam Sisters is an initiative that is supporting a small group of female Syrian refugees so they can become financially independent by making jams from local fruits and ingredients.

As an extension of our existing ‘Sisters’ programming, Jam Sisters is a viable food income generation opportunity, while also improving awareness of climate adaptation.

Our teams have been busy providing awareness on the need to care for and protect our communities, and on Kurdistan Environment Day in April 2023, we planted around 500 fig and blueberry trees to benefit families in Essyan camp, as well as 40 Robinia and Cypress trees in public spaces.

Our Boxing Sisters project was originally set up with the help of Cathy Brown, a retired professional British boxer and certified Cognitive Behaviour Therapist. Inspired by Cathy, the boxing and self-defence taught by our trainers teaches girls about strategy and focus, relieves stress and increases their confidence as well as physical strength. By learning self-defence techniques, women and girls feel more secure knowing that they can protect themselves.

As one of our newest projects, Peace Sisters provides women and girls with training so that they can lead peace processes and take a more active role in rebuilding their fractured communities. Although there are other projects on the ground that foster peacebuilding and social cohesion, we believe Peace Sisters is one of the first to train women to become mediators, peace defenders and active community leaders.

The Lotus Flower Women’s Business Incubator (WBI) provides a financial foundation and business mentorship for women-led small businesses. In addition, our women’s centre will host educational sessions on gender-based violence and women’s legal rights.

What started as a small project, utilising the talents of a few skilled bakers amongst the women is going to develop into a longer term cafe project, to build a more extensive community space that will help foster relationships, confidence and community spirit.

We offer a variety of programming to support mental health including awareness sessions, group discussions, art therapy (painting and knitting), community outreach and home visits. Topics include SGBV prevention, domestic violence, emotional abuse, prevention of early marriage, women’s rights.

In any conflict, women and girls are known to suffer most, and displacement worsens pre-existing patterns of discrimination. This exposes them to heightened risks of human rights violations, including rape, slavery, trafficking, forced marriage and sexual violence, which all increase as a result of conflict, as well as torture and even murder. In addition, girls living in conflict-afflicted countries have less opportunity to go to school or seek employment.

First launched as a pilot in Spring 2019, the Lotus Flower’s Storytelling Sisters project provides an educational platform for local women to learn a combination of photography and creative writing skills, enabling them to share their experiences through photos and stories. The project aims to provide marketable skills and facilitate improved mental health outcomes through shared experiences and community support.

We worked with Khaima to implement a pioneering project aimed at supporting men and boy Syrian refugees who have been badly impacted by conflict and displacement. The programme was designed to foster healing through the sharing of past ordeals and mental health therapy, as well as providing educational and holistic activities to encourage self-expression and the processing of feelings through art, music and poetry.

Since 2016 we have been working with a team of pro-bono international lawyers at Hogan Lovells to pursue civil litigation cases for women ISIS survivors. The move is aimed at finally bringing Islamic State fighters to justice, while delivering compensation to female Yazidi survivors in northern Iraq.

The Lotus Flower collaborates with partners including Operation Hope Australia, the Presbyterian Church and Days for Girls, in order to provide and promote sustainable solutions for female menstrual health. We implement menstrual health for girls aged between 12-16, who are currently living in the internally-displaced camps within Kurdistan.

As the rise of ISIS forced many people to flee their homes, internally-displaced people fled to camps in northern Iraq.  The majority of IDPs are from small villages and most of the female population were unable to attend school due to traditional, conservative policies or a lack of financial resources.  As many of the women now find themselves solely responsible for their family, the lack of education has potential disastrous consequences for their future. 

Although we primarily support women and girls, we fundamentally believe that men and boys must be involved in advancing gender equality and bringing change for everyone. In recent months, we have been running positive masculinity workshops for men and boys, which are aimed at raising awareness and shifting traditional perceptions around women’s roles in society, and helping end harmful behaviours against them.

We want to teach women to sew and weave in order to learn the skills to earn a living one-day to support themselves and their families.The Lotus Flower will be working with Yazidi women in Kurdistan region of Iraq. The atrocities Yazidi women have faced hit the headlines in August 2014, and are still doing so today.

As part of our holistic programming and broader approach to improving women and girls’ mental health, we offer a range of creative classes which are designed to foster healing and self-care. These include music classes, art therapy and craft groups – which include skills such as knitting, accessory-making, beading and sewing.